An Aug. 21 forum featuring most of the candidates in Sylva’s upcoming municipal election painted a broad portrait of a community wrestling with growth, values and limited resources, but it also revealed a few stark differences that could prove critical when voters begin going to the polls in November. 

Like any parent or guardian, Katie Clubb wants to provide nutritious food for her grandchildren. Clubb, a Canton resident, said with rising grocery prices, SNAP benefits don’t adequately cover healthy options for anyone in her household. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture for fiscal year 2024 reported that the average person received $187.20 in SNAP — Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — per participant, per month.

The signs are still there lining the fragile bank separating Interstate 40 from the Pigeon River — chunks of jagged asphalt, wayward pipes, rusty cables bent into submission by nature. 

Just 11 months ago, as Hurricane Helene mercilessly swamped the whole region, the river, now low and calm, was force-fed by its tributaries and swelled to the point it carried away 10 sections of I-40’s eastbound lanes over about a five-mile stretch near the Tennessee border.

As the rain from Hurricane Helene mercifully subsided around noon on Sept. 27, smaller creeks in Haywood County receded fairly quickly, the extra water from each flowing into larger tributaries before combining into the Pigeon River as it heads through a narrow gorge into Tennessee. 

The N.C. Department of Transportation is beginning to evaluate projects for its next 10-year capital plan and wants the public to be involved.

After years of inaction by Congress led to a massive $262 million deferred maintenance backlog in America’s most-visited national park, it will now be up to visitors to pony up their own money to support the park’s most basic staffing and maintenance needs.

An awkward Hazelwood intersection could be scrapped ahead of planned North Carolina Department of Transportation improvements to South Main Street, as long as there’s no opposition from area business owners.

Folks driving up or down Soco Mountain on the Haywood County side may notice some new signage indicating elk could be in the area.

Sylva has taken the next step in the long process of repairing Allen Street after slope failure destroyed parts of the road early in 2020. 

State and local officials celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for Corridor K, a project that will improve mobility in Western North Carolina and create a unique land bridge over a highway so hikers and wildlife can safely travel the area.